Evangelicals And The End Of Christendom

Exploring the response of evangelicals to the collapse of 'Greater Christian Britain' in Australia in the long 1960s, this book provides a new religious perspective to the end of empire and a fresh national perspective to the end of Christendom. In the turbulent 1960s, two foundations of the Western world rapidly and unexpectedly collapsed. 'Christendom', marked by the dominance of discursive Christianity in public culture, and 'Greater Britain', the powerful sentimental and strategic union of Britain and its settler societies, disappeared from the collective mental map with startling speed. To illuminate these contemporaneous global shifts, this book takes as a case study the response of Australian evangelical Christian leaders to the cultural and religious crises encountered between 1959 and 1979. Far from being a narrow national study, this book places its case studies in the context of the latest North American and European scholarship on secularisation, imperialism and evangelicalism. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, it examines critical figures such as Billy Graham, Fred Nile and Hans Mol, as well as issues of empire, counter-cultural movements and racial and national identity. This study will be of particular interest to any scholar of Evangelicalism in the twentieth century. It will also be a useful resource for academics looking into the wider impacts of the decline of Christianity and the British Empire in Western civilisation.

Exploring the response of evangelicals to the collapse of ‘Greater Christian Britain’ in Australia in the long 1960s, this book provides a new religious perspective to the end of empire and a fresh national perspective to the end of Christendom. In the turbulent 1960s, two foundations of the Western world rapidly and unexpectedly collapsed. ‘Christendom’, marked by the dominance of discursive Christianity in public culture, and ‘Greater Britain’, the powerful sentimental and strategic union of Britain and its settler societies, disappeared from the collective mental map with startling speed. To illuminate these contemporaneous global shifts, this book takes as a case study the response of Australian evangelical Christian leaders to the cultural and religious crises encountered between 1959 and 1979. Far from being a narrow national study, this book places its case studies in the context of the latest North American and European scholarship on secularisation, imperialism and evangelicalism. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, it examines critical figures such as Billy Graham, Fred Nile and Hans Mol, as well as issues of empire, counter-cultural movements and racial and national identity. This study will be of particular interest to any scholar of Evangelicalism in the twentieth century. It will also be a useful resource for academics looking into the wider impacts of the decline of Christianity and the British Empire in Western civilisation.

The thesis of this book is that the Christian movement can indeed have a significant future - one that will be faithful to the original vision of the movement and of immense service to our beleaguered world. But to have that future, Christians will have to stop trying to have the kind of future that sixteen centuries of official Christianity in the Western world has conditioned them to covet. Douglas John Hall examines the decline and fall of Christendom and looks at ecclesiastical responses to the end of Christendom. He proposes that the churches make their disestablishment work for good and describes how the Christian movement might serve dominant societies, classes, and institutions in a post-Christian era.

In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North America. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism's belief and practice has formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture? Diagnosing its political cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become "empty." Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God's ongoing work in the world as founded in the incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the current day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America.

Over the last quarter-century, evangelicalism has become an important social and political force in modern America. Here, new voices in the field are brought together with leading scholars such as William E. Connolly, Michael Barkun, Simon Dalby, and Paul Boyer to produce a timely examination of the spatial dimensions of the movement, offering useful and compelling insights on the intersection between politics and religion. This comprehensive study discusses evangelicalism in its different forms, from the moderates to the would-be theocrats who, in anticipation of the Rapture, seek to impose their interpretations of the Bible upon American foreign policy. The result is a unique appraisal of the movement and its geopolitical visions, and the wider impact of these on America and the world at large.

In the first comprehensive history of American evangelicalism to appear in a generation, Matthew Sutton shows how charismatic Protestant preachers, anticipating the end of the world, paradoxically transformed it. Narrating the story from the perspective of the faithful, he shows how apocalyptic thinking influences the American mainstream today.

Apocalyptic millennialism is embraced by the most powerful strands of evangelical Christianity. The followers of these groups believe in the physical return of Jesus to Earth in the Second Coming, the affirmation of a Rapture, a millennium of peace under the rule of Jesus and his saints, and, at last, final judgment and deep eternity. In Discovering the End of Time, Donald Akenson traces the primary vector of apocalyptic millennialism to southern Ireland in the 1820s and ’30s. Surprisingly, these apocalyptic concepts – which many scholars associate with the poor, the ill-educated, and the desperate – were articulated most forcefully by a rich, well-educated coterie of Irish Protestants. Drawing a striking portrait of John Nelson Darby, the major figure in the evolution of evangelical dispensationalism, Akenson demonstrates Darby’s formative influence on ideas that later came to have a foundational impact on American evangelicalism in general and on Christian fundamentalism in particular. Careful to emphasize that recognizing the origins of apocalyptic millennialism in no way implies a judgment on the validity of its constructs, Akenson draws on a deep knowledge of early nineteenth-century history and theology to deliver a powerful history of an Irish religious elite and a major intersection in the evolution of modern Christianity. Opening the door into an Ireland that was hiding in plain sight, Discovering the End of Time tells a remarkable story, at once erudite, conversational, and humorous, and characterized by an impressive range and depth of research.

An indispensable exploration of the runaway bestselling series! From Left Behind to Glorious Appearing, the books in the Left Behind series have sold over 60,000,000 copies worldwide and their popularity continues to grow. What makes the books about the apocalypse so popular? What is it about the end times that fascinates millions around the globe? And what does the Bible really say about the end of the world? In Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times, six experts gather to answer these provocative questions and more, guiding readers through the different Christian millennialist views and how they developed. They explore the historical, biblical, social and political issues raised by the Left Behind series' religious perspective, present broad questions that curious readers might ask, and encourage us to reflect on the issues the series raises. An entertaining and informative book for fans as well as skeptics, this is a top-notch resource you won't want to be without! Rapture, Revelation, and the End Times answers some of the most often-asked questions about this fascinating series of books: * How popular are the Left Behind books . . . and why? * What does the Bible say about the end times? * How did Left Behind's particular vision of the end times develop? * When do Christians think the end times will happen? * How are other religions treated in the Left Behind series? * What social and political messages appear in the Left Behind books? This MUST-HAVE book also includes a READER'S GUIDE with: * Reader's Group Discussion Questions * Full Glossary of Religious Terms * Suggestions For Further Reading from a Variety of Perspectives This book has not been approved, licensed, or sponsored by any of the writers, publishers, or distributors of the books in the Left Behind series nor by any person or entity involved in the creation, production, or distribution of any media based on the series.